Rumours Live Album Sept 23

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by WalkAThinLine.

No, it reached #81 on the Billboard 200. An album can perform very well on the album sales chart but not even appear on the Billboard 200. Lindsey Buckingham's eponymous album reached #13 on the Album Sales chart but didn't even reach the top 200 on the primary album chart.

Help an old man out. Is that because of no airplay?

[WalkAThinLine.]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

Help an old man out. Is that because of no airplay?

Particularly beginning in 2018, Billboard began to place a greater emphasis on subscription streaming when factoring chart placements for the Billboard 200 album chart. Around that time, Billboard counted 1,250 streams as one album unit for paid subscription services and 3,750 streams as one album unit for free ad-supported streams. Fleetwood Mac is no slouch when it comes to streaming; several of their songs have been played several hundred million times, and "Dreams" has over a billion streams. However, the streaming numbers for Rumours Live were comparatively more modest.

As more people have moved on to streaming services, the practice of purchasing physical albums has somewhat gone by the wayside. That results in less competition, meaning that an album can perform well on the sales chart even if it only sells a few thousand copies. Given that Fleetwood Mac has several thousand fans who will buy literally anything the band throws at them, it's no surprise that Rumours Live charted relatively high despite only moving roughly 10,000 units. Meanwhile, the original Rumours album actually outperformed Rumours Live by over 40 spots, largely riding on its ridiculous streaming numbers.